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Moral evil results from a perpetrator, or one who acts intentionally and in so doing has flouted some duty or engaged in some vice. Natural evil has only victims, and is generally taken to be the result of natural processes. The "evil" thus identified is evil only from the perspective of those affected and who perceive it as an affliction. Examples include cancer, birth defects, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, acts of god, and other phenomena which inflict suffering with apparently no accompanying mitigating good. Such phenomena inflict "evil" on victims with no perpetrator to blame.

In the Bible, God is portrayed as the ultimate perpetrator for the “sun, moon and stars, celestial activity, clouds, dew, frost, hail, lightning, rain, snow, thunder, and wind are all subject to God's command.”[4] Examples of natural evils ascribed to by God follow:

Forest fires: God says, “I will kindle a fire in you, and it shall devour every green tree in you and every dry tree” (Ezekiel 20:47).

Classical theism’s Mark R. Talbot concurs with Scripture in ascribing evil to God: “God’s foreordination is the ultimate reason why everything comes about, including the existence of all evil persons and things and the occurrence of any evil acts or events.”[5]

In opposition to classical theism, open theism’s Gregory A. Boyd counters, "Divine goodness does not completely control or in any sense will evil."[6]

Natural evil (also non-moral or surd evil) is a term generally used in discussions of the problem of evil and theodicy that refers to states of affairs which, considered in themselves, are those that are part of the natural world, and so are independent of the intervention of a human agent. It stands in contrast to moral evil.[7] Both natural and moral evil are a challenge to religious believers. Many atheists claim that natural evil is proof that there is no God, at least not an omnipotent, omnibenevolent one, as such a being would not allow such evil to happen to his/her creation. However, the deist position states that intervention by God to prevent such actions (or any intervention) is not an attribute of God.

Jean Jacques Rousseau responded to Voltaire's criticism of the optimists by pointing out that the value judgement required in order to declare the 1755 Lisbon earthquake a natural evil ignored the fact that the human endeavour of the construction and organization of the city of Lisbon was also to blame for the horrors recounted as they had contributed to the level of suffering. It was, after all, the collapsing buildings, the fires, and the close human confinement that led to much of the death.

The question of whether natural disasters such as hurricanes might be natural or moral evil is complicated by new understandings of the effects, such as global warming, of our collective actions on events that were previously considered to be out of our control. Nonetheless, even before the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (which many believe was the beginning point of global warming), natural disasters (e.g., earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, flooding, fires, disease, etc.) occurred regularly, and cannot be ascribed to the actions of humans. However, human actions exacerbate the evil effects of natural disasters. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) says human activity is a key factor that turns “extreme weather events into greater natural disasters.” For example, “deforestation and floodplain development” by humans turn high rainfall into “devastating floods and mudslides." When humans damage coastal reefs, remove mangroves, destroy dune systems, or clear coastal forests, "extreme coastal events cause much more loss of life and damage.” Damage by Tsunamis varied “according to the extent of reef protection and remaining mangrove coverage.” [8]

In Europe, human development has “contributed to more frequent and regular floods.”[9] In earthquakes, people often suffer injury or death because of “poorly designed and constructed buildings.”[10]

In the United States, wildfires that destroy lives and property aren't "entirely natural.” Some fires are caused by human action and the damage inflicted is sometimes magnified by building “in remote, fire-prone areas.”[11] Dusty conditions in the West that “can cause significant human health problems” have been shown to be “a direct result of human activity and not part of the natural system."[12]

In sum, there is evidence that some "natural" evil results from human activity and, therefore, contains an element of moral evil.

Another common argument, espoused by Alvin Plantinga, is that everything that appears at first glance to be natural evil could in fact be moral evil committed by freely acting supernatural beings, such as fallen angels.